M01
by Wafflegirl0304
Summary: **AU** He'd knocked them down but there they were, coming yet again for him. He shot them with ice, an infuriating power, so useless, so fragile, so weak, so absolutely unnecessary.
1. Chapter 1

**Super short, but hope y'all like. I might continue it. C: at most it'll be about 2-3 chapters!**

Zane walked.

Face torn.

Head slammed.

Heart dead.

Not that he had a real one.

He pulled his suit tighter over his chest—like that did any good—and picked up the pace. His legs felt like lead, bricks filled with sand. Almost useless.

But maybe he could escape.

He licked his lips, not daring to feel his face, not daring to feel the metal under his skin or the rip down the middle. Blood loss would not help right now. He could taste oil on his tongue, slippery and slick, unlike blood which was red and thick and fluid.

_Nindroids don't die nindroidsdontdienindroids don't—_

He blinked. He felt it coming.

_Push to the ground. Slide. Groan. Pain. _Without another moment's hesitation, he kicked up and squirmed out. He tucked his head in, let the word spin onto his feet and bolted as fast as he could. _Takakakakaka_, came the footfalls, swift, light, unlike his shoddy movements and heavy footsteps. His own breath burned his throat, the wind flying past him, a blurred mess.

Zane turned and blasted ice from his palm, his feet still moving, heart still throbbing. His attacker gave a cry of fury, a shatter of ice slashing his ears. "Dammit," he whispered, turning and pushing himself faster through the streets. He skidded at a corner, the road blazing his heels, and hastily dashed forward and ducked into an alley.

_Slam_. He collided with something warm, hard, alive. He jumped back and slammed into another, this one cold, like his element. He must've frozen this one back there. Kicked, pushed, shoved. His heart hit the ground, scratching gravel. It pulsated faster and faster. Vulnerable. They pinned him and blasted him—his head exploded in a tsunami of agony, surely they must have—

He screamed.

"NinjaGOOO!"

Knocked them down but there they were, coming yet again for him. He shot them with ice, an infuriating power, so useless, so fragile, so weak, so absolutely unnecessary. They just broke free and he saw the barrels aimed at him, huge black holes at his chest. He wrapped his arms around him protectively, backing into a wall. He raised his other arm, hand balled into a bloody, dirty fist. The arm that had it.

The thing that would kill him, was on it.

He was not proud of his 'ray gun'. It killed. He didn't want to kill. Not really. He had killed someone before, accidentally. But the someone had tried to kill him first.

_his father his father his daddy—_

So was it okay?

His arm trembled as he loaded the cannon, a tiny one that blasted dry ice. He knew dry ice wouldn't kill if it was done wrongly, but it could make people's fingers drop off and they could go crazy, _like him,_ and when he used it, he felt like he was dying. The pain came in waves throughout his body, throttling it to no end. His weapon wavered pathetically but it stopped them.

"Please put your weapon down, M01," the man closest to him said, muffled by scarves and a shiny grey mask that Zane could see himself in. His black machine gun was still aimed right at him. His voice held no emotion. It was cold and hard and official. "M01. I repeat, please put your weapon down."

_No._

He fired, but his aim was off. The ball of solid dry ice could have both killed on impact and from temperature if it had been anywhere close to anyone. The man in front of him didn't shake his gaze.

"We see that. Za—M01, put it down now."

_No._

Slowly, M01 lowered his arm. His knees drove into the ground and he fell forward, defeated.


	2. Chapter 2

He had been dragged to the containment lab.

Zane opened his eyes, meeting not with the dark sky he would have rather plummeted into his face but with the white surface he called a ceiling. He quickly reached over and touched his chest—but then he felt the rapid beating of his artificial heart, and knew he was safe.

He sat up, letting his hands run along the cold tiles of the floor. Nothing had changed. He was still trapped, again.

His feet took him to the window in the door, the one that let him see the eyes of the guards without their shiny masks and heavy armour. There was nobody looking in.

He decided he would try again later, when it was darker.

Even though he knew there was no escaping this place.

The rip in his sleeve revealed his arm panel, the one that the cannon had been fitted into. That had hurt a lot, and he hadn't wanted it. But what power did he have against them anyway? Of course, the cannon came with something called a microchip.

Tracking his every move.

Spitting out his stats, his health, his energy, his location to the enemy he couldn't destroy.

Zane growled and slid into his bed, burying himself under the covers and half-wishing it was dirt.

* * *

Cole shook in his boots, even though he'd gone through this same routine ten thousand times. Shotgun tucked safely on his back for easy access. Hard, black hat on his head. Close to five layers of protective clothing and a bulletproof vest. They really had invested too much in him.

He couldn't believe he'd been able to keep up the act for close to a year now—but he knew it wouldn't last long. If they'd already gotten Kai, they would get him too. He didn't want that, really. It was just a matter of time.

_lose your powers—_

He trudged at attention, alert (maybe), hands glued to his sides. He didn't put the mask over his eyes. Not yet. It made him sweat gallons more.

He turned the corner around the facility and made his way down the side, close along the wall. His job to patrol. His job to guard them.

His team—_no!_

He closed his eyes. _Don't tell them_, he thought. _Don't tell them about your past. They can hear you._

He shut off his mind and continued forward—and slammed into somebody.

"Hey, don't worry," the somebody said, a little friendly, too friendly—too daring. Seeing how badly Cole jumped, he added, "You okay? Wait, you should have your mask on."

Cole looked up and saw himself in the reflective surface of his mask. He hurriedly flipped his own shade down.

"I'm fine,"

_No, you aren't._

He imagined the guard's hands grabbing his neck and dragging him into a cell of his own as the guard walked away, tuned emotionless again, and he quickly did the same.

* * *

"You can't throw me in here!" Kai yelled. "Open the damn door."

He could've burned it, but that would be proving his powers. If he was to prove innocent, he had to find another way out.

He looked around his cell and felt sick. His walls were a quiet ember shade, his bed stark white, a small cubicle cum shower area in the corner and a small table and chair in the other. He felt vulnerable without his gun. His trusty AK. It was better than these scumbags who'd betrayed him and threw him in.

And yes, he couldn't believe he had come to this.

He knew his friends were already inside here—had been here for as long as he could remember, he thought. That's what he wanted himself to think. It was only because he had been reminiscing that they had picked up on his thoughts and they'd freakin' thrown him in.

And he hadn't said anything for a year to try and defend his friends, not a single word because he was too much of a coward.

Kai, the coward. What a joke.

Yes, he was a coward. The biggest scaredy-cat of all. Back then they called him reckless but now he was careful, as careful as he could be. He'd let her die, watched her get executed and heard her scream but he didn't say a word.

He threw his foot into the door, but it wouldn't give. Probably made out of some alloy or some shit. He kicked it again and twice over, but didn't even make a dent.

The chagrin surged within him. He wanted to twist off the handle, but that would lock him in further. He lifted the flap he always looked into and saw them. There weren't many mutants. Just M01 to M05, wait, M06 now that he was inside. The first three he never looked into for fear of his own life, so he usually watched the other two.

Finn and Rhett.

They were both younger than him. Just kids. Sixteen. Fifteen. This wasn't right. They were kids, should be in high school, not a prison. He? He was almost nineteen. He could die if he wanted. They couldn't.

And yet they were here, locked in by their powers from above, a curse in disguise.

He sat down in the middle of his room. What awaited him? Death? Fire was pretty dangerous. Was it more dangerous than lightning? Than ice? Than time?

Kai felt a javelin strike his heart.

What would she have done, had she been spared? Sit here and cry? Fight back? Try to escape? He wished he could hold her. But she was gone, along with his own sister, who had been taken away and then released because she was found to be spotless, powerless. Well, in the technical way. He knew his sister was anything but powerless. She would come, if she knew he had been locked up.

That was what he was afraid of. He didn't want her to get locked up too.

Or worse, executed.

_pale skin short hair splashed with red red_ red—

He regretted not having tried to bail his friends out. Now he couldn't even see them, or talk to them.

Kai sighed. He fingered the tiny square chip underneath his wrist.

Watching him.


	3. Chapter 3

**the conclusion finished in a McDonald's at 9.35pm. Go me.**

**Hope you guys enjoy and do leave a review! *hugs you tightly***

Jay sat with his back against the titanium door. It was hard, but it gave him a sense of security knowing he was closer to life here than anywhere else.

The walls were white, padded and rubbery because he liked to break things. Also, his element wouldn't harm them, so he would be contained.

Shut down, trapped.

Being quarantined sucked. Captivity wasn't his favourite place to be in. It wasn't even a place he should have been in in the first place!

On his lap a piece of paper lay. He tapped the chewed-up end of his pencil on the surface as he stared at the figures swimming on the page. His eyes traced the outline of the car and followed the arrows and skimmed over the scrawls he called handwriting. They were disastrous. Even he himself had no idea what he was writing about most of the time. But he continued anyway.

He set down the paper and began on a fresh sheet. His mind jerked, the picture coming to him all at once. He struggled to get it down as precisely as he could before he lost his train of thought and—

"Dinner!"

"Shut up!" he shouted, and smacked his palm on the door. He heard the satisfying thump of a body being thrown back on the other side and couldn't help but grin.

Jay let the plate rest on the small metal platform they had built into his cell door. It was cool. Nobody else had something like this. It was an invention he would have liked to claim. He ignored the smell of his rice and the acid eating away at his stomach from his low food intake. The tip of the pencil _scrrrrched_ away at the paper as he scribbled and lined—

Leaving the white shreds on the floor, he picked up his plate and shoved spinach into his mouth.

* * *

Lloyd walked down the main corridor of the containment lab, eyes half-lidded, face devoid of emotion. The footsteps lingered on either side of him sternly, resonating solidly through the brumal hall.

"Heard Kai got locked up," he said casually, hands clasped behind his back, his tone level. The cuffs on his wrists held them together so he couldn't do anything. Not like he wanted to. He didn't care what happened to himself or anyone else anymore. Life had just taken a wrong turn, a horribly wrong turn, and now he was feeling the effects. "What'd he do, reduce a chair to ashes?"

"It's none of your business," the voice behind the mask spoke brusquely. "Shut up and keep walking."

He did so and came to a big brass door with heavy locks on the handles. A guard walked up and smacked the surface five and a half times with his knuckles while the other guard raised his goggles and looked into a thin hole in the door.

"M03 reporting."

The doors crawled open and the guards shoved him in. Lloyd looked up at the room, the same as everything else, tall and grey and so incredibly boring he wasn't sure why he hadn't lapsed into an eternal period of unconsciousness. Behind a cold brown desk sat a man with a wrinkled smile.

"It is good that you have come."

"Cut the crap," he muttered. "Get it over with, whatever it is you want."

The man raised a eyebrow, his hair white as snow. "No longer struggling? The last time you came, you put up quite the fight."

Lloyd shrugged. The guards kicked him to the floor and he landed hard, smashing his chest into pieces. He had learned to move his head so his jaw didn't get crushed. And so it did not.

He stood up again and looked the old, old man square in the eye. "Just tell me what you want. I'm on a tight schedule." The sarcasm dripped off dryly. The old man did not smile.

"As you wish." He turned in the big office chair and pressed a button on a remote that appeared in his hand. A screen flickered on in the wall, showing a man in torn white clothing running down the street.

"That's M01," Lloyd stated, his heart racing just a little. Stop it, he thought. Shut up and sit down.

The man did not speak. He pressed another button and another screen popped up, of someone sitting in the middle of a million and one paper balls, crushed up dreams and nonsense. The figure's hands moved swiftly, his hair defying gravity oh so slightly.

"Name him."

"No."

"His real name?"

"No."

Flick. There was a smaller boy, leaning against the door. His room looked odd, with walls that were oddly textured and looked wooden. The boy was dressed in dark blue and was rubbing a pair of spectacles on his shirt, as if in a trance.

"Name him."

"M05."

"His real name?"

"I don't know."

Flick. Another boy with hair dark as night, lying on his bed. Watery images and figures transformed before him above him, dripping wet onto the bedspread and his body. His eyes were a brilliant shade of turquoise.

"M04," Lloyd remembered him because one of the guards always complained about getting his pants wet when he tried to feed the guy. These two were kids, way younger than them, not much younger than him. "I don't know his name."

The man smiled. "Good."

The memories zipped through his mind and he had to sit down. He glared at the man, his uncle, his teacher. His torturer. "Please let me go,"

"Not until you break," Wu whispered. "I need your power to subdue M01. He has been getting stronger and stronger, his feelings are getting more intense suddenly. And M06 knows much about escape. He must be contained at all costs."

Fire? Contained? Ha!

"I won't break," he said confidently. "I'm too far gone. I don't care."

"Really now?" Wu smiled again, his wrinkled smile that didn't reach his ears. "But you have so much potential, Lloyd."

He froze.

The memories jarred and glitched in his brain, screaming at him, all the times he had heard his name being spoken out of anger, out of frustration and then by all his friends and his father yelling "Lloyd!" and his mother who had long gone-

He closed his eyes and clenched his fists. "It won't work, Wu." Sensei or Uncle didn't matter to him. It was just Wu.

He didn't say anything. He focused on not letting his powers out. He could feel the energy surging in his veins—oh, after so long, it felt like something new, something surreal. He hadn't got the chance to actually fight in like, ten years. He was itching to break something. Destroy something.

Like Wu.

"You're breaking," Wu muttered.

He smirked. "Sure am,"

With one swift motion, he lifted his hands forcefully. The cuffs dug into his bones like daggers and did not give.

"Shit!" he yelled.

The ground shook, a crack splitting the floor. Something was screeching—it was definitely not a human. Lloyd was almost thrown back by it—the sound seemed to rip his head in half. Wu's expression morphed from calmness to utter horror.

Someone stood in a huge hole in the wall where the concrete had crumbled. Three people, to be exact. A tall red robot figure with two humans by its sides.

A girl sat at the top of the mechanical monster. Her hair was sloppily chopped off at her neck, mostly uneven. The helmet on her head was badly dented.

"Nya," he breathed. She looked grimly at him.

"Rhett, finish him!"

The boy with the cracked spectacles raised his hands towards Wu and a high-pitched sound struck the air. Lloyd squished his palms to his ears. His uncle yelled and crumpled to the ground. A huge claw extended from the robot's body and closed around him, yanking him through the air towards her. He gasped as he was thrown to the back of the robot, strapped down by metal tape.

"Move!" she shouted.

The two boys latched onto the solid red legs and Nya ran right through the desk and through the corridor. The other boy moved his hands and threw pointed whips of water at the guards. Gunshots fired through the air, his heart fire in his chest.

"Holy shit!"

"Stop!"

"M04, you stop right now!"

"Cole is somewhere here!" Lloyd wheezed desperately. "Don't shoot him!"

"Give me a good reason why not." Nya growled.

She punched through a door and reached in. A struggling spiky-haired boy wriggled like a fish.

"Sis!" he yelped. "Whoa!"

"Where's Jay?" she demanded.

"Two—doors down!"

Smash.

Hit.

Lloyd couldn't believe it.

"Nya, stop!"

She stopped. Lloyd's heart stopped moving but it kept beating wildly. He craned his neck to see what was before them.

Two guards with their masks up, shaking in their boots and heavy armour. Their brown eyes glistened with sweat and tears.

Water-man raised his guns. Rhett opened and closed his hands.

Nya looked almost defeated. "Cole...Dareth."

"Please, take us away," Dareth whispered, dropping his gun. Cole clung to his pathetically.

"Take you away to hell, you mean." Water-man said surprisingly calmly, his whips dancing in the air in front of him. "Nya, gimme the signal."

"Don't take Jay," Cole called quickly. "He's uncontrollable. Scared. He won't stop blasting the walls. If you try he'll—"

_"Kill us like you did?"_ Water-boy screeched. His eyes flashed viciously.

"Shut up!" screamed Cole, and he fired.

Lloyd panicked. "No!"

The bullet pierced the floor. Finn let out a shrill cry and let his whips loose. Nya swiped them up with her claw and smashed through Jay's door.

White hot pain slammed Lloyd's body and the lights went out forever.


End file.
